Celebrated Scientists Tour Four Nevada-based Cancer Registries that Demonstrate Cancer Registry Management Systems Integration in a Variety of Settings

IMPAC Medical Systems’ Cancer Registry business unit team accompanied distinguished guests, Yuka Hirabayashi, RN, PHN PhD and Hiroshi Nishimoto, MD of National Cancer Center of Japan (NCC) as four IMPAC customers hosted site visits in Las Vegas this past December. Nevada Cancer Institute, Nevada Central Registry, Sunrise Hospital and University Hospital served as exemplary cases of IMPAC’s cancer registry systems’ effective integration with state central registries, pathology laboratories, private health networks and public university cancer programs, respectively. Witnessing such a variety of configurations was imperative to Drs. Hirabayashi’s and Nishimoto’s core responsibility at NCC, where their Cancer Surveillance Section will influence the standardization of cancer registries in Japan.

In fact, the NCC Cancer Surveillance Section manages the hospital-based cancer registry in the NCC Hospital, as well as the nationwide registry for hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) as a collaborative project of the Japanese Research Society for Cancer of Colon and Rectum. The Cancer Surveillance Section also leads surveillance activities such as providing a descriptive analysis of cancer mortality trends in the "Cancer Statistics Digest" section of every issue of the Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology. With such a scope of service to Japan’s cancer registry and research programs, Dr.s Hirabayashi and Nishimoto benefited greatly from seeing a similarly broad array of cancer registry software implementations in IMPAC customer sites.

Nevada Cancer Institute Optimizes Treatment and Research by Integrating Workflow

As a working example of the full-spectrum workflow management solutions that IMPAC offers, Nevada Cancer Institute demonstrated how a new cancer registry integrates IMPAC’s radiation and medical oncology electronic medical records (EMRs) with IMPAC Registry Systems and its cancer research center to optimize the facility’s value as a private research and treatment institution. Additionally, the NVCI host, Karen Power, MPH, CTR Director Health Informatics, compared notes with Drs. Hirabayashi and Nishimoto about the role that cancer tumor registrars play in US hospitals, the relevant continuing education for registrars, the optimal use of registry data on site, and the perception of importance of cancer registrars by hospital administrators, oncologists and oncology nurses. The NCC guests in turn presented the Japanese national and hospital-based cancer registries situation, touching on similar points for comparison with NVCI’s talk, after which both groups shared in a Q&A session.

Nevada Central Registry’s Standards Compliance Ensures Quality Data Aggregation and Analysis

Nevada Central Registry provided an excellent example of how a state central registry using IMPAC’s central registry application meets data aggregation and quality objectives using national standards. These benefits interested the NCC guests because in international cancer data collection, standards compliance improves the ability to abstract and analyze diagnoses and case findings for optimal worldwide research into effective cancer treatment.

Sunrise Hospital Demonstrates Effective Workflow Integration in Large Private Center Setting

Led by  Jymmie Charland, CTR, Sunrise Hospital hosted a tour of its private health network’s established cancer registry that serves Sunrise’s large cancer center. Dr. Hirabayashi appreciated Sunrise Hospital Cancer Registry’s demonstration of a manageable multi-user cancer registry workflow, especially given NCC’s similar size and workflow situation Ms. Charland described how casefinding and follow-up methodologies differ in registries of various sizes. The tour also included a visit to the brand new pediatric oncology unit, breast cancer center, and the Elekta Leksell GammaKnife® suite. Sunrise has integrated information from IMPAC Registry System with Leksell GammaKnife, which the hospital uses for non-invasive stereotactic radiosurgical treatment of brain tumors.

 University Medical Center Provides a Model Case Study for NCC’s Clinical Research Trial Management Situation

By contrast, the University Medical Center tour demonstrated how Robyn Simon, CTR, the sole registrar of a well-established registry in a large, public university hospital, uses IMPAC Registry System to carry out similarly effective data abstraction and analysis in support of all of University Medical Center’s departments. Ms. Simon showed Dr. Hirabayashi how IMPAC Registry System manages the demanding workflow by offering multiple quality checks and quality updates to ensure satisfaction of current regulatory reporting requirements. Additionally, IMPAC Registry System’s combination of pre-defined templates and custom ad-hoc reports provide Ms. Simon with comprehensive reporting capability. This tour in particular strongly correlated with some of the challenges that Drs. Hirabayashi and Nishimoto currently face at NCC Cancer Surveillance Section regarding patients undergoing clinical research trials. 

Drs. Hirabayashi’s and Nishimoto’s recent visit follows ongoing collaboration between NCC Cancer Surveillance Center, Dr. Keiichi Nakagawa at the Department of Radiology, University of Tokyo, and IMPAC Cancer Registry business unit as the groups cooperate on continued improvements for the overall benefit of further cancer research and treatment technology developments.